There is currently a severe shortage of teachers in the U.S. workforce. The problem is especially acute among science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) teachers and exacerbated by high turnover among new teachers—those with less than 5 years of teaching experience. In this article, the authors investigate one piece of the puzzle. The authors model a social cognitive approach to understanding self-efficacy, a key precursor to job performance and retention. Their interactionist approach accounts for both demographic (i.e., gender and age) and relational variables (i.e., social networks). The authors test their ideas on a sample of 159 STEM teachers across five geographic regions in the United States. Their analysis reveals patterned differences in self-efficacy across gender that are contingent on the communities of practice in which the teachers are embedded. Together, their theory and findings highlight the value of taking a holistic, interactionist view in explaining STEM teacher self-efficacy.
Effective science communication is important for mitigating the spread of COVID-19, but little is known about how college science students, who are the future of science, have communicated about COVID-19. In this study, we surveyed 538 biology students in the Southeastern United States about how they communicated about COVID-19 with others and how prepared they felt to communicate. We found that many students were communicating frequently but did not feel prepared to communicate accurately, particularly about vaccine safety and effectiveness. Students also wrote about their communication strategies, and many students reported using potentially ineffective communication. Finally, we explored student misconceptions about COVID-19 and found differences among religious, political, and racial/ethnic groups that could impact their communication to their communities about COVID-19. These results indicate a need for science communication education about COVID-19 among undergraduate scientists in training.
Biology education is currently undergoing reform efforts to increase student retention and appreciation within the biological sciences. Both Vision and Change in Undergraduate Biology Education call for the increased use of evidence‐based pedagogical strategies to support learning in biology learning environments. However, integration of evidence‐based instructional strategies relies on biology instructors' knowledge of student pre‐conceptions and misconceptions. Genetics represents a critical area of biology education that presents many problems for student learning due to its abstract nature, the need to think through different spatial scales, and heavy reliance upon technical language. Pedigree analysis represents a convergence of topics in genetics and, therefore, has the potential to identify multiple student learning difficulties. Pedigree analysis requires an understanding of modes of inheritance, which requires a knowledge of the nature of both dominance and recessiveness of traits, as well as understanding of the connections between genotype and phenotype and use of the symbolic scale. This project sought to gain an understanding of students' misconceptions of pedigrees in order to promote the development of an assessment tool for students' misconceptions. The research team developed targeted questions and collected written responses to these open‐ended questions as well as conducting self‐selected student interviews. Student responses were coded to identify the most common misconceptions which were used as distractors a draft multiple choice concept inventory (CI). The draft CI was administered to freshman, sophomore, and upper division undergraduate students. These data were then used to further revise the finalized CI. Pre‐post data are currently being collected to ensure reliability and discriminatory power of this CI. Future studies will include analysis of the persistence of distinct misconceptions across the different student groups, as well as a more thorough analysis of student misconception types and their potential sources.Support or Funding InformationFunded by NSF Award #1710262This abstract is from the Experimental Biology 2019 Meeting. There is no full text article associated with this abstract published in The FASEB Journal.
Genetics is a widely discussed topic both within and outside of science. One particular topic in genetics that is readily encountered outside of the science classroom is mutations. Students encounter mutations through several different avenues (e.g., news, comic books, movies) that may not be scientifically correct. This pre‐exposure to genetics concepts has the potential to misinform their ideas before ever enrolling in a genetics course. Because of this misinformation, genetics can be difficult for students because of the inconsistences in complex terminology, abstract concepts, and having to think across multiple scales. In order for instructors to create curricula for students, they first need to understand the misconceptions of genetics students may bring into the classroom. Instructors also need to understand if their practice is allowing students to overcome their misconceptions or if they are persistent throughout the students' education. The aim of this project is to 1) understand students' misconceptions about mutations and 2) determine if these misconceptions persist as student progress through their undergraduate education. A draft mutations concept inventory was used to collect responses from 454 students in introductory and advanced genetics courses, as well as introductory biology and advanced microbiology courses. The multiple choice questions included a correct answer and distractors from known misconceptions. Utilizing non‐metric dimensional scaling, data was visualized to determine which misconceptions persisted across different courses and which were resolved or created. Further studies aim to more fully explore conceptual understanding and specific misconception types by student group and so that instructors can provide resources that will enable students to gain an accurate conceptual understanding of mutations within genetics, microbiology, and molecular biology.Support or Funding InformationNSF Award #1710262This abstract is from the Experimental Biology 2019 Meeting. There is no full text article associated with this abstract published in The FASEB Journal.
Genetics is known to have difficult concepts to learn and understand due to its use of complex, nuanced, and technical vocabulary, as well as the abstract nature of many concepts, the requirement to think across multiple scales, particularly the symbolic scale, and the pace of change to the field. The concept of mutation and its effects are particularly important due to the foundational level they play in many critical areas of modern biology including evolution, central dogma, genotype‐phenotype connections, genomic identity, and personalized medicine. This project aimed to gain a thorough perspective of student understanding and alternative concepts they hold regarding mutations. Student response data were gathered using open‐ended questions focused on three distinct learning objectives. The student should be able to: 1) define mutation, 2) categorize changes to DNA and predict the outcome of these changes on a protein produced from the altered DNA using the genetic code, 3) differentiate between somatic and germline mutations and predict the inheritance patterns of each type of mutation, 4) predict the nature of changes to DNA exposed to intercalating agents, base analogs, and radiation (ionizing and non‐ionizing). More than 400 student responses to seventeen questions were analyzed qualitatively. Student responses showed that students have major issues understanding: 1) the difference between a mutation and any change in RNA, protein, or function, 2) central dogma terminology and how genetic information “flows” within it, 3) the relationships of somatic and germline mutations to heritability, and 4) how mutagens cause mutations. It is hoped that knowing which alternative conceptions students commonly hold will aid faculty in designing instruction that enables students to form a more accurate conceptual framework regarding mutation.Support or Funding InformationNational Science Foundation Grant 1710262 to RLST and NMBThis abstract is from the Experimental Biology 2019 Meeting. There is no full text article associated with this abstract published in The FASEB Journal.
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